Rio Ferdinand has labelled his ban and fine from the FA for his tweet as 'ludicrous'

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IF Rio Ferdinand was a standard sort of employee and not a professional football player he would very likely have been dismissed for using an abusive term in relation to someone’s mother on twitter.

The communication could have damaged the business interests or reputation of his employer. Instead the FA imposed a three match ban, a £25,0000 fine and ordered Ferdinand to attend an education programme.

He has since tweeted that he finds the punishment “ludicrous,” querying whether humour is allowed.

I query whether Mr Ferdinand would have found the punishment ludicrous if someone had been tweeting racial slurs or whether it is just slurs against women that fall into the category of funny rather than offensive.

However, the incident reinforced the advice I give to all my clients of the importance of having a social media policy.

“Worst day, EVER!”

OMG, so angry right now.”

You’ve really hurt my feelings, you know who you are.”

These are the kind of attention seeking social media posts that elicit lots of concerned comments, usually of the “What’s up hon?” variety

Having got the required attention from friends and family, the conversation usually goes off line (“Oh nothing, I’ll text you hon”) for greater detail.

Usually, but not always. And if the worst day ever was at work or it was a colleague or customer who caused the hurt feelings, that social media exchange could well end up as evidence in a disciplinary meeting or tribunal hearing.

Like this exchange in 2011 from Ms Whitham who worked for Club 24 Limited:

Ms Whitham: “I think I work in a nursery and I do not mean working with plants.”

Two of Ms Whitham’s friends on Facebook (not the real kind of friends it would seem) also worked for Club 24 Limited and reported her. She was dismissed. Her employer found that the comments might have damaged its reputation and in particular that it could have damaged its relationship with a major customer, Volkswagen.

Ms Whitham claimed unfair dismissal and won. The tribunal found that the dismissal was unfair, partly because there was no evidence that the relationship with Volkswagen had been damaged and the employer had not asked Volkswagen its view on the conduct.

Ms Whitham’s compensation was reduced by 20% because her conduct had contributed to her dismissal.

Nobody really won though did they? Ms Whitham had still lost her job, one which by all accounts she was good at. Her personal comments to friends were made the subject of legal scrutiny and columns like this one.

Her employer ended up with a legal bill as well as paying compensation and probably didn’t ask Volkswagen what they thought because they’d rather Volkswagen didn’t find out about the incident. Oops.

We wouldn’t need social media policies if everyone followed this short policy of my mother, Doreen:

If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.

But the Doreen policy isn’t enough these days. If you want to reduce staff losses, the hassle of disciplinary meetings and the cost and bad publicity of defending tribunal claims get yourself a social media policy.

Train your employees on it and give them clear guidelines on their personal use of social media. You may need to remind them of your policies on equal opportunities, internet use, and email and communications policy while you are it.

But it will take far less time and cost far less than defending tribunal claims will.